May 2012 — Michael Odom indicted on two aggravated sexual assault charges over claims of baby sitter and Heather Moore.

BANDERA — Heather Moore was 8 when she accused her half-brother of raping her. Now 19, she has recanted that claim and says the perpetrator was her then-stepfather, Michael P. Odom — who she also previously had accused.

Authorities have charged Odom, but Moore's brother, incarcerated at 13, still is serving a 15-year prison term.

Odom, who denies wrongdoing, faces two sexual assault charges, one arising from Moore's complaint in 2002 and the other from by a baby sitter who accused him in 2001.

Separate trials of the Lakehills resident and ex-Marine are slated for next spring in Boerne, where state District Judge Keith Williams on Thursday ordered the cases moved due to extensive publicity in Bandera County.

Prosecutors said investigators revived the case last year after the baby sitter belatedly started cooperating with investigators and Heather Moore recanted her accusation against Jesse Ray Moore, her older sibling, and renewed her prior claim against Odom.

Heather Moore declined interview requests. She told a WOAI reporter she falsely accused Jesse Moore, then 12, at the urging of her mother, Jennifer Odom, to protect Michael Odom.

“She said, ‘Don't point the finger at daddy, just point it at (Jesse) and everything will be perfectly fine,'” Heather Moore tearfully said in the televised report. “I blame myself for it all... and I can't stress enough how sorry I am about it.”

Odom's defense attorney, Patrick Hundley, said his client has cooperated all along with investigators, passing two polygraph tests and testifying in 2003 before a grand jury that declined to indict him.

Hundley contends the charges stem from media pressure and lobbying by relatives of Jesse Moore, who are convinced he was railroaded.

The baby sitter concocted the complaint against Odom after he arrived home to find her smoking pot with older boys, prompting Odom to flush the pot and dismiss her without pay, Hundley said.

“He wasn't convicted solely on her allegations,” Merritt said. “There was other evidence.”

He declined to elaborate, citing the confidentiality of juvenile criminal proceedings.

District Attorney Bruce Curry said the passage of years and Heather Moore's changing story present unusual challenges in prosecuting Odom, but he noted a grand jury found the complainants credible. He declined to discuss the cases in detail.

“We're hopeful that's what a new jury will find” at the trials, he said Friday.

Interviewed in prison, Jesse Moore, 23, said investigators coerced him into taking a plea deal to avoid a possible 40-year prison term.

“They were saying, like, ‘We know you did it. Your mom says you did it. Michael said you did it. Heather said you did it. If you don't confess to it, we'll see that you get the max,'” he said this week at the Connally Unit in Kenedy. “I did not touch my sister.”

Jesse Moore signed a statement for investigators, admitting he raped Heather Moore at knifepoint, Hundley said. Because he was prosecuted as a juvenile, the case records remain sealed, as do details of his prior legal run-ins.

He was on probation when accused by his sister, according to other court records that portray the Odom household as dysfunctional and characterized by domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Before his arrest, Jesse had been removed from the home by state regulators after violent clashes with Odom.

Jennifer Odom told authorities she wanted Jesse out of the home, the report says, noting, “Ms. Odom did not care where he went as long as he was taken elsewhere because she was ‘going to start knocking him silly.'”

Two months earlier, the report says, Jesse was accused of threatening to kill Heather and himself, of showing her pornography and of exposing himself to Heather and a male classmate.

Jennifer and Michael Odom were said to be negligent for going out and leaving Jesse, Heather and three younger children from Odom's prior marriage unsupervised, the report states.

A 2003 report by Hill County CASA on the family noted the 2002 outcry by Heather against Odom.

“A subsequent investigation by TDPRS found reason to believe sexual abuse. Jennifer Odem (sic) professed not to believe her daughter's outcry and further investigation resulted in a finding that (she) knew of that abuse and failed to protect her child.”

Hundley said the reports on the household are rife with factual errors and unsubstantiated allegations — including the sexual misconduct claims — against his client.

The reports also note Odom's father, Timothy Odom, now 55, had been accused of molestations dating to 1992 and served nine years of a 12-year sentence after pleading guilty to 12 counts of indecency with a child in 2000 based on complaints by two young girls.

Michael Odom dismissed speculation that child molestation runs in his family, noting his parents divorced when he was 2.

“I'm just trying to move on with my life,” he said outside court Thursday, declining further comment. “People are bringing up a past that needs to be dropped.”

A 2004 TDPRS report on the state's effort to take conservatorship of the three kids from his first marriage, who have since been adopted, states: “Information gathered during the (2002) investigation revealed that Michael Odom had sexually abused Jesse Moore and Heather Moore.”

Jesse Moore denied being molested by Odom, but said: “He beat me up a lot.”

Moore has received extensive tattooing in his decade of incarceration.

“Smile Now Cry Never,” is inked across his hairline. “Trust Nobody” appears under his right eye. His right cheek reads “Jenny,” directed at his mother, who he said rarely visits or writes.

“I did it more out of hate and anger,” Moore explained. “I felt like the only thing your mom don't really want messed up is your face.”

He said he had been working on getting his GED at the Texas Youth Commission facility when he was transferred to prison at age 16. He has been passed over once for parole.

Asked what he'd like to do upon his release, he said: “I want to be a volunteer working for a children's hospital.”

Brenda Briggs, Jennifer Moore's sister, said Heather Moore recanted her accusation against Jesse Moore when she was 15. Briggs has led a campaign to see him freed and Michael Odom prosecuted.

“We want to get Jesse's case reopened,” said Briggs of Devine, who lacks money to hire a lawyer.

She said she was helping Heather Moore cope with the emotional toll of accusing her brother.

“I tried to explain to her that she was just a child. It wasn't her fault. She repeated a lie. It was the adults' fault,” said Briggs, 42.

Neither Jennifer Moore, former Bandera County Attorney Kerry Schneider, who prosecuted Jesse Moore, nor the attorney who defended him, Richard Trevino, could be reached for comment.